Joshua Victor is my first and middle name. I was named after Joshua in the Old Testament, who was a Victor in his own right, leading the Children of Israel into the promised Land. But this Joshua was a foreshadowing of the New and Greater Joshua, who would be the Victor over sin, death, and the devil, and would lead the New Children of Israel into the Promised Land of Heaven. This is none other than Jesus Christ, who by His death and resurrection is the True Victor.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Sermon on Numbers 21:4-9 & John 3:14-21, for the 4th Sunday in Lent, "The Cross for you!"

Sermon Outline:

1.Most famous Bible verse, John 3:16—back
up two verses and Jesus explains His cross in relation to the bronze serpent,
Num. 21:4-9. Grumbling against God and Moses > God sends serpents >
people repent > God sends a cure. Bronze serpent—likely detestable for them
to look at—yet God’s Word attached to it made it their cure. Look to it and
live. So why does Jesus match His cross to this story? Look to Him (believe in
Him) when He is raised up, and live. Cross is detestable to many. See there our
own sin. Romans meant it to be degrading to the crucified, deterrent to the
public.

2.Sin is our poison, burning wounds,
consciences. All “snake-bitten.” Poison is fatal—there is only one cure—Christ
crucified. Jesus became “snake-bitten” for us. Old-fashioned remedy for snake
bite—suck the poison, draw out the poison. But when the “fangs” of the serpent,
the devil, struck Jesus and tried to poison the perfect Son of God, He died. He
absorbed all the poison of our sin, drew into Himself all the power of the
devil’s venom. But out of His wounds flowed the blood that is our healing. If
health and healing and medicine are the opposite of poison and death, Jesus’
blood flowed out to us for the healing of the world. Like medicine being
spilled out from the cross to purify and forgive the world, so Jesus’ blood
neutralized and overcame the poison of sin and death. Echoes back to the first
ancient prophecy Gen. 3:15. Bruised heel, crush the head of the serpent.

3.Medical analogy of antibodies in blood:
specialized immune system proteins that fight off foreign and harmful
substances. Antibodies give immunity. Jesus’ blood contains the missing
“antibody” that fights against sin. We lacked it, yet by faith in Jesus we gain
His “immunity.” Sin is taken away when we look to His cross—have faith or
believe in Him. His blood is our cure, that pours out of His wounds for us.

4.From the unlikely match from bronze
serpent to cross—Jesus introduces John 3:16. God so loved the world. Isn’t that one universal human need? Everyone
wants to be loved? Many suffer from a lack of it (through cruelty, loneliness,
bad relationships), but even those who have been loved are still short of the
full goodness of God’s love that He made us for.

5.He so lovedthe world that
He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
eternal life. God’s love is way beyond whatever is lacking in the human love
that we have or have not received in this life. More than enough to compensate
the cruelty, the injustice, the hatred many have received in this life. God’s
love literally covers every sin, when Jesus pays the price for it at the cross.
All sin and guilt, ours, our neighbor’s, every human being’s is acknowledged as
wrong and justly deserving punishment, and is punished in Jesus’ cross. We’re
left with the forgiveness and the mercy of God, in place of what we’ve justly
deserved; of what we’ve unjustly received. God’s love flows down, through the
cross of Jesus, through His Word—the good news—to all who desire and believe
it. God shows His love for us in this—that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us! (Rom. 5:8)

6.He said: “whoever believes in Him will
not perish but have eternal life.”
What does it mean to “perish”? Boxes of fragile items, or containing foods that
have an expiration date are often stamped: “Perishable—handle with care”. So
also we are perishable; have an expiration date (known only to God). Our lives
have a definite end, and our bodies slowly age and become sick as evidence. Not
indestructible or invincible. But even beyond death, there is a worse fate for
those who do not receive the “antidote”—who do not believe in Jesus, and thus
find the cure for their sin. To “perish” is the eternal death of separation
from God in hell. But God tells us that our “perishability” does not have to be
so. Promised eternal life beyond our “expiration date.” For all who believe in
Jesus.

7.In God we find the One and only person
who cannot break His promises. What He has promised He will surely keep, for it
is impossible for God to lie. The amazing thing is that Jesus has freely
offered this to whoever would believe
in Him. God’s love that we crave and need, the cure of our sin-sickness that is
fatal, and the promise of eternal life with Him are all promised us in these
words. Open to all! Not just the potential of salvation for you;
but everything accomplished, and He’ll deliver it to you by faith! Yours by
believing in Him—trusting that He is True; never breaks His promises; sent His
Son to be lifted up for you and your salvation. How does this “faith” come? How
do you become one of those who believe? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by
the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17)!

8.God actually delivers the gift and
all that is necessary to receive and possess it right in the words themselves!
God’s Word is powerful to create faith in you, to make you alive to Christ and
dead to your sins. Strip away the sin, draw out the venom, clothe you with
Jesus’ innocence, pour out His blood for your forgiveness and healing. Jesus
Christ has won God’s victory for us in His cross, and delivered it to us by
faith in His Word.

9.“For God did not send his Son into the world
to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever
believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Sadly,
as simple and as free as the cure is, some will reject it, and have no part in
it. Sin is a deadly poison, and we have no resistance to it ourselves, and
we’re perishable.

10.But
for all who look to Jesus’, who believe in Him, we have His life and His
victory. Yet one more way the cross stands as the great sign of Jesus’ victory.
In Isaiah 11:10-12, often read around Christmas time, we hear: “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall
stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and
his resting place shall be glorious. In that day the Lord will extend his hand
yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people…He will
raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel.”
Jesus, is that “signal” for the nations. Signal, standard, or banner. A
military flag or standard driven into the ground to show triumph, and claim
this land. In the cross of Jesus Christ, God drove His standard into the ground
at Calvary, and declared His victory over death, and staked His claim for us.

11.The
hymn Stand Up Stand Up for Jesus describes Christians bearing this banner of
the cross, as it leads them from vict’ry unto vict’ry. Spiritual battle, in
which Jesus is already the declared victor—but the skirmishes still taking
place on the battlefield, and those who abandon the enemy and rally to the
cross of Jesus are still received as His followers until His final return, and
the battle is concluded. While sometimes soldiers lose their nerve in battle
and flee their standard, we are to rally boldly to the standard of Jesus’
cross, and know that under Him we won’t be defeated or ashamed, but all who
look to Him will be saved. Cross = signal or standard for the nations, the
place for the scattered remnant to gather, the site of His victory. Jesus
Christ has won God’s victory for us in His cross, and delivered it to us by
faith in His Word. Now rally to the cross, to the standard, the banner of God’s
victory. Find in Him your life, your holiness, your God loving and forgiving
you. Receive what the Word of Christ even now brings and delivers to you. You
who believe in Him shall have eternal life!

Sermon
Talking Points

Read
past sermons at:
http://thejoshuavictortheory.blogspot.com

Listen
to audio at: http://thejoshuavictortheory.podbean.com

What caused God to send the serpents among the
Israelites in Numbers 21:4-9? What did the burning pain of the bites move
them to do in v. 7? How did God appoint a solution for their suffering?
What is puzzling or even unusual about the solution? Why might they not
have wanted to look at it?

How does this anticipate or look forward to
Jesus’ cross? Why might we (or others) not want to look to the cross for
our cure? What do we see there? How is Jesus’ cross similar, and yet
different from the bronze serpent in Numbers? John 3:14-15

How does the cross relate to the first prophecy
ever given in the Bible, to Adam and Eve, about the defeat of the serpent
(the devil)? Gen. 3:15; Rom. 16:20; Heb. 2:14

Jesus says that whoever believes in Him would
not perish, but have
eternal life. What does it mean that we are perishable? Psalm 103:15. Is there proof of this? What is
God’s simple cure for this “fatal weakness”? To whom does He offer this
cure? John 3:16. Is it God’s desire that anyone will go without it? John
3:17. Will some refuse that cure nevertheless? John 3:18

How is the cross of Jesus like a banner or a
standard raised in battle as a sign of victory? Isaiah 11:10-12; 49:22.
How do we as Christians “rally” to that standard, and of what does it
assure us (in terms of the spiritual battle that we are in)?